


Promontory

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Cas Whump, Multi, making a way in the world, picking up the pieces
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:43:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4011472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg survives. </p><p>Cas does not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First.

Meg woke up to the reek of cigarette smoke and the scratch of crusty shag carpet against her belly. She shifted with a groan. A clink of bottles to her left chimed out an explanation to the sudden headache that assailed her, and she let out a fumey sigh.

With a grimace, she struggled upright, blinking at the dim interior of what appeared to be an apartment room. Stained walls came into focus. With them, piles of dirty clothes and crumpled bags of fast food. Meg pursed her lips and resolved to at least be grateful that she overpowering smell looming over the scene wasn’t owing to her. Not all of it, anyway.

She jumped in surprise as something shifted on her other side. Scrambling, Meg turned to face it, hand going to the knife that was digging into her thigh. She must not have taken it off before she’d fallen asleep. Or passed out. Last night was appearing to be a drunken mystery.

The something appeared to be a twenty- something kid. It’s face glared red and it was a mess of gangly limbs and long, greasy hair. Meg stared at it with reproach, eyeing his boney, scabbed chest with a wish that last night would materialize. She wanted take stock of how much pride she still had.

“Hey babe,” he coughed out, shuddering with the effort in what only could be described as a high school- dropout drawl. Its beady eyes focused on Meg, then something behind her. 

“Babe, hand me, would you?” Its hand shook and reached around her for something before erupting into a coughing fit again.

Wordlessly, she handed it a more or less empty bottle of cheap whiskey. It sighed his thanks and fumbled for a drink of it, its other hand sliding to Meg’s thigh with a roguish wink.

“Oh honey,” she grumbled, pulling away, “I don’t think so.”

Its grimy fingers dug into the flesh of her leg and its face lolled with a grin. “Oh, come on. I invite you in, let you sleep at my place… what ever happened to thanking the host of the party?” Its lips curled in a lurid, snaggletooth grin, and its skinny arms attempted to drag Meg towards him.

The knife was buried in its chest up the hilt before it could blink, and it screamed until Meg sliced its throat up, too. After that, the kid loosed only strangled gurgles that subsided in minutes. 

Wobbling into a standing position, Meg left it twitching where it lay, and set off in search of a bathroom. 

 

 

Shoving past stacks of boxes, more clothes, and other junk, she pushed into a room that had to have been six feet deep at the most. The sink had been left running. Some sort of growth was spreading around the drain. The curtain for the shower fluttered in garish rips and, upon further inspection, someone was in the tub. Gripping her knife in one hand, Meg dragged the ragged fabric away to get a better look, tensed for the worst. She only found another kid about the size of the first one, face down, head under the faucet. For what she could see of his face, it was purple around the eyes and white everywhere else. Loose fingers at its side had caged around a syringe, emptied. Meg carefully stared at the stillness in its limbs and drew the curtains back where she had found them.

She cupped water from the sink into her hands and scrubbed at her face with a vengeance, willing the dirt of the night to wash away.

Her mind was a foggy battle to scrape up memories, everything a blur. The events of her morning had filled her in on the gist, but there was a nagging feeling in her gut, the sense that she was missing something. She lifted her head to face her reflection in the cracked mirror with a frown. The bags under her eyes looked like bruises stamped into her face.

She patted her hair down from where the floor had tousled it in a less than peaceful sleep, smoothing it down the lengths. Her fingers tested it from where smooth dark brown gave way to mangled blonde. A month or so, she’d hacked the worst of the ends off, but on the ends were evidence of an unhealthily resilient yellow. With a twisted satisfaction, Meg turned her head this way and that. It looked ugly as sin, but each glance she got of the god-awful dye job brought with it memories of Crowley’s fists and an ageless spanse of lying on cold tiled floors with blood clogging her nose. She glared at the thought. She needed the reason not to consider going back.

And she was doing fine, really. Fending for herself was nothing new. Not that anyone from back in the day wanted her, anyway, unless they wanted something to kick around. She hadn’t talked to or seen a demon that didn’t want to kill her since she had helped the Winchesters. Plus, knows how grateful Rocky and Bullwinkle had been since she last saw them-

Meg blinked. The Winchesters. The fog from last night was lifting with startling clarity. Her knees shook and she plunked down on the edge of the bathtub, only just missing its occupant. The bulbs above gave an eerie flicker above her as she fished her phone out of her pocket. The screen as it lit up, remembering the calls.

The light gave out, plunging her in darkness, save for the blinding glow of the phone. The messages on it were the only thing in the world. She snapped it shut. Blinking owlishly, she opened her mouth, closed it and rubbed her eyes with a sigh. Meg got up, and made the fumbling journey back into the living room.

Weak morning light was just barely making it through the shades on the window, settling a ghoulish glow on the kid from last night. It was laying splayed out, the red smile on its neck yawning toward the ceiling. The room looked much smaller when illuminated, and tireder. The plaster looked to be sagging on the walls, towards the body on the floor. The kid’s fingers were just brushing the liquor bottle Meg had handed to it not fifteen minutes ago. She bent down to see how much it left: a quivering inch of whiskey. Meg snatched it up, located her kicked- off shoes, and was out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pray  
> for you all the time
> 
> The blessed time  
> is when you are around


	2. second.

Meg didn’t like hardware stores much.

She felt validated in boasting a thick skin, but strolling aisles full of rope and saws and knives just wasn’t her go- to. In light of not so recent events. The brush of a rope was to hear her own screams. The glint of a knife promised blood on the ground. Sliding into the doors of Rural King was exactly a relaxing experience, but she only needed one thing anyway.

She prowled down the cement floors, squinting at the signs and trying to single out which one pointed towards home goods.

A couple down the row from her were staring holes into her back, she could tell. The bumpkins, in their plaid- and - overalls getup, were eyeing her torn and stained jeans and her beaten up jacket with what she could guess to be a mixture of curiosity and disgust. It had been a few days since her last shower, and a week since she’d shoplifted new clothes. Meg expected bedraggled-ness, but the public didn’t seem to expect her. Turning around, she bared a smile at them, and they blinked, the man taking its wife by its shoulder and leading her along the way. Meg rolled her eyes and continued on her search.

Home goods had been at the very back of the store. Meg poked around until she found what she was looking for. She picked it up, testing its weight, and decided it would do. She lugged the large mason jar up to the counter and plunked it down, keeping the elderly cashier woman locked under her eyes. She watched with some amusement the lady pursing its lips with surprise and disapproval, and maybe the smell. Meg didn’t know. When she wasn’t indoors, she could hardly smell herself anymore. She’d gotten used to it.

“Five fourty- five. Please,” it said sourly, busying itself with something under the counter to not look at Meg, who pulled out a few crumpled bills. As the lady dealt with change, Meg gazed at the bags of chips and candy stacked around the checking counter. Lays and Hershey’s and all sorts of garbage. Her stomach yowled, remembering her last meal- a sandwich shoplifted from walmart. Twelve hours ago.

She looked with longing at the row of stuff, which boasted homestyle taffy, chocolates, fancy popcorns, among other things. Her attention caught a pile of peppermints at the end of the shelf, and her appetite dissolved with a clench of her stomach. Meg turned back to the cashier, snatched the change held out to her, and snatched the jar away before storming out of the store under the lady’s glare.

Fucking peppermints.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The keys are gone, my slave  
> You keep me beating on, my slave


	3. third.

_Being stabbed had been no cake walk._

_The initial shock wasn’t as bad as Meg would’ve expected- hitting the ground afterwards seemed more painful at first. She had lain with a fiery raging in her chest, squinting through her hair as Crowley’s footsteps echoed away, too caught up in himself to check to make sure he had done the job right. She had rejoiced. Escape. Death._

_It was a strange mercy, lying there with her bones soaking up the cold of the cement. Of all the ways to go, it was this, alone, going quietly away. Forgotten. She watched her arm twitching at her sides, the bruises there telling tales of what had and what could have been. Meg had lain there thinking she should have been singing hymns for all her luck._

_Until she had realized she wasn’t dying._

_Or, at least, not quickly enough. The torture and pain she had been comparing her wounds to seemed far away. Her world only existed in screaming agony, the invisible claws raking at her insides. She lay on the ground in what felt like dumbstruck awe. Every heartbeat she felt was like being stabbed again. Meg thought she could smell blood. She thought about Hell. She would shiver if she could at the memory. Too hard, too painful, too weak, too cold. As the world settled in a milky blur around her, she thought about gentle hands against her wrist, a rough voice, a kiss against a wall. Meg resigned herself to this with defeat. Nothing to do about it now._

_Meg was enjoying a nighttime mist and a feeling of gradual numbness in her legs when she heard footsteps. They walked nearby with a steady gait before stalling, shuffling uncertainly, and then hurrying her way._

_"Hey. Hey! Oh, my God. Are you alright? Oh, my God..,"_

_Whoever it was tried to shift her upwards and Meg surprised them both by screaming. She couldn't even talk before, but the wrenching pain of being moved now had ripped it out of her._

_"Oh, God. Its okay. Its okay. Hold still, I'm calling an ambulance right now, its alright, I'm here." The voice talked itself from a paniced mumble into a tone of assurance. Meg wished she could push him away and tell him to leave her alone._

_His fingers dug into her coat and he was leaning over her. Meg couldnt feel the rain anymore, but drops were licking off the sides of his jacket and into her eyes, and she tried to communicate this to him without much more than a gurgle. All she could do was blink the water away._

_"Itll be ok," he murmured. He wiped the water off with the side of his thumb like he’d known her forever. Meg wanted to punch him for it, and was equally touched._

_She must have passed out at some point, because she woke up in warmth, straddled to a bed, the grinding feel of wheels on road jerking her up, down and sideways. She couldn’t move. She felt like an infant. Meg groaned and allowed herself a slow blink before she closed her eyes._

_"Hey. Hey! Hey, she woke up!" The voice of the man from the road warmed her ear. She felt a hand on her fingers, and she grabbed it without thinking. An infant, indeed. When she opened her eyes he was looking at her carefully._

_"Its going to be alright. Hospital's in ten minutes."_

_"If you say the word okay again, I’ll brand it into your ass." Thats was Meg would say it if she could talk, but her half- formed words just fogged up the breathing mask they’d put on her. Yeah, thats what she’d say. She’d get him to stop looking at her in that sad way. She would get him to stop._

_The ambulance jerked around and the world started to blur. Meg squinted and realized that the man’s eyes looked very, very blue. She dropped his gaze and waited for darkness to come. Let’s move some furniture around, she'd said. Eloquent as always._

_"Hey, keep looking up, stay with us, now.." The guy huffed a breath and Meg heard a distant crinkling, like a plastic wrapper._

_"Here." A cold, vaguely sticky object was pushed into her hand. Meg creased her brow._

_"Peppermints," she heard the guy explaining heatedly. "I mean, you can’t eat it now. Obviously. When we get there, though. They help. Broke my tailbone as a kid. My brother kept feeding them to me. Said they would calm me down. Ate ‘em for weeks, developed a taste for em, so I always have one on me.. He knew what he was talking about. Fixes everything."_

_Meg closed her fist around it and shut her eyes. She'd had enough of brothers._


	4. fourth.

Meg kept looking at the scrap of paper crumpled in her hand. It read out the gist of what the voicemails said, which were hard to interpret in the first place, and the pencil she’d used was smudging up the address. Irritatedly, she smoothed out a wrinkled corner before lifting her eyes to the glass hospital doors. The numbers seemed the same. The place made sense. It seemed as good a match as any.

Straightening her spine and shifting the bag on her back, she pushed resiliently inside, wrinkling her nose at the assailing scent of disinfectant and sickness. The waiting room was full of tired, grey- looking people. Meg stuck her nose up and walked past, up to the reception desk.

“I’m looking for a patient,” she told the woman sitting there, who glanced up, looking distracted. “I’m visiting.” Meg smiled with all her teeth.

The lady regarded her stinking clothes and wadded note wearily. 

“Last name?” she asked, turning to the computer at last.

Meg paused uncomfortably. She had forgotten until now that they were probably hiding under a false name. God knew what they told the hospital, and Meg despaired at the thought of having to sneak into the damn place and search the hundreds of rooms. Her skin was already crawling.

“Winchester?” She tried half- heartedly. The receptionist tapped away at her keyboard, and Meg flicked a glare back at a young man who had taken up the line behind her, cradling a broken arm. He jumped, and leaned back a little.

She turned to find the receptionist raising a skeptical eyebrow. “No Winchesters in here, ma’am,” She told Meg dryly. Meg frowned and pretended to be surprised while she racked her brain, trying to scrounge up any other plausible aliases. The man behind her watched, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.

“You could… try… Clarence?” The thought came to her out of nowhere. Meg felt a tiny wave of embarrassment, though no one had any way to know why. She felt herself scowl, working to banish the thought. 

“That’s a last name?” The woman behind the counter said, now frustrated and watching Meg with suspicion. 

“First.” Meg smiled broadly again, not bothering to make it go to her eyes. “He’s my neighbor. Don’t know him very well, just want to make sure he’s alright.”

“Right.” The woman looked at her coldly a moment more before going back to her keyboard. “We’ve got two Clarences here, ma’am. First is in hospice care.” Her eyes flicked up to her as Meg’s breath caught. “He’s eighty- six,” The woman finished, keeping her gaze. Meg blinked.

“The other?” She asked.

“Room 204 on the second floor. Adjacent to our hospice care.”

Meg’s breath rushed out, and then managed a third smile, which was somewhat of a battle. She couldn’t stand here much longer- she decided to take it on faith. “That’ll be him. Thank you.”

She turned and shoved her way past the door before the receptionist answered, and felt the young man’s eyes on her back as she went.

Meg trailed up the stairs and wandered through the halls until she found the door. 204 was against one of the corners of the building, with a giant window on the opposite wall. Pausing, she glanced down onto the yard below. There was a scraggly garden following the brick of the building, with flowers pushing weakly through cheap mulch and haphazard piles of rock, which leading to an uneventful stretch of browning grass. They needed watering.

The knob turned easily as Meg slipped in- they hadn’t bothered to lock the door, stupidly. She turned into the room carefully.

He was the first thing she saw, stretched out beside the length of the bed, feet resting in the chair he wasn’t occupying. His body was sagging, somehow, drenched in tiredness, and his head was angled away, towards the bed or maybe the window on the far side of the room. He didn’t even notice Meg creeping in. Way off his game, she thought wryly.

The bed’s occupant was facing her ever so slightly, and she could make out his profile in the light. His chest rose and fell raggedly in sleep, his hair plastered messily. It was a different sleep than she knew of him. She knew him from a deeper sleep, a peaceful and concrete one. In that sleep, he hardly breathed, hardly moved, even when she yelled at him, shoved him, carded her fingers through his hair.  
In this sleep, she could see his eyelids twitching from where she stood.

She shut the door behind her with a soft ‘snick’ of wood, and Dean jumped where he sat, turning in surprise. When he realized who she was, he struggled to his feet, eyes wild and angry, and made his way over, miraculously soundless.

“Its- you-… how the hell did you get in here?” He managed in a coarse whisper, leaning down with a furious curl to his lip. Meg watched the purpling circles under his eyes, the harsh lines on his face. She thought he might smell almost as much as she did. Meg didn’t answer, only watched. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, glancing away, and then at the floor. His hands moved nervously until she found one pointed right at her.

“I can’t do it,” he forced out. “Any other time. Any other time I will, and goddamnit I have, dealt with your shit, and Crowley’s, and whoever the fuck else is watching the damn building, but I don’t care if the damn heavenly host is circling the place because I can’t right now, okay?” He rubbed his face. “Page me later with the latest for apocalypse news. Or Hell’s news. I’ve got too much.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Meg scoffed, watching Dean squirm incredulously.

“Whatever- whatever this is,” he said, motioning vaguely at her. “Whatever you’re here to tell me about, or warn me, whatever. It’s always something,” he seethed.

Meg felt mad enough to spit. “What are you talking about? You called me, Winchester.” She fished out her phone, flipping it open, and displayed it to him, watching him muddle through making sense of the numbers. Slowly, his brow uncreased.

“Voicemail,” he muttered slowly. He went and sat back down, a sigh rushing out as he bent over. “I can’t really remember the night,” he said, more to himself than to Meg. “Must’ve called everybody I had a number for.”

“Why?” Meg stayed by the door.

Dean’s head lolled and he looked over to the bed again. His hands went to the armrests of the chair restlessly. He closed his eyes slowly, and opened them again. Meg was struck by the absurdity of the moment, especially from his perspective. The light was weak coming in, the whole room felt blue. Dean must have felt surrounded by ghosts. It was too quiet, save for the slow beeping of machinery, calculating, analyzing that shape in the bed. Meg wondered what they were pumping into him to keep him so still.

“We still don’t know who it was,” Dean said, quiet and considering. He watched the shape in the bed. “I just… found him.” He rubbed his brow again, sighing. “We’ve asked everyone we can think of. Sam thinks its a radical somewhere. A rogue angel who still blames him for everything that happened… a demon, maybe.” He glanced at her. “Must’ve been why I called you, see what you’ve heard. Even though that’s stupid, considering..,” He blinked. “How the hell did you survive? We saw you, you and Crowley..,”

Meg moved closer, away from Dean, towards the foot of the bed. She crossed her arms, watching the cascading bundle of tubes and wires descend into a pale wrist. She eyed the cannula distrustfully, and felt a wave of prickling nausea raise the hairs of her neck.

Dean watched her every move, leaning towards him instinctively. Meg shot him a glare, and looked over the bed, over the body hidden by thin blankets.

Whoever had done it hadn’t been cut corners. With the sheets pulled just up to his waist, she had a full view of the gauze wrapped around his torso, a tight cocoon of wrappings. His hands were bandaged, too, plausibly from grappling with a vengeful blade, assailing fists. Meg’s face twisted. There was a bandage taped to his neck. His face was strangely unmarred, save for a swollen cheek. He looked a little gaunter than the last time she saw him, a little older, more tired. More human. Meg noticed the hand nearest to Dean was out towards the edge of the bed, palm splayed open, as if just released from another. Dean was looking away, lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but instead he just stared outside. Meg turned back to that sleeping face. She watched his eyelids twitch.

This lasted only minutes before Dean had had enough. He gave Meg a cold look, his previous exhaustion replaced by hostility. 

“I know Sam has this weird trust in you,” Meg found him saying, “And I know Cas did, too. I’m not saying I’m not thankful for what you did back there. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking past who you are, Meg. What you’ve done.” He shook his head, lip trembling. “God knows you’ve done worse to other people than what happened to him… you’re still riding the body of that girl… I can’t forgive any of that.”

Meg looked at the outstretched hand. The pizza man was a good memory, he’d said. A good one. 

“Meg. You need to leave.”

“I brought him something,” Meg said ubruptly. She hefted her backback around to her front, unzipping it and rummaging inside. Dean watched her warily.

“Here.” She produced the jar, wrapped in loose cloth she’d kept from a long- destroyed shirt. “You don’t even have to tell him it was from me. God knows I’ve done nothing but break my back for you bastards,” she loosed, setting it carefully down on the bedside table. “And you’ve been truly great about it. Really. Just want to thank you for all the good times.”

She stood straighter and Dean turned away. “Just go.”

Meg balled her fists furiously. She glared at the back of his head, dying to crush him, blast him, crumple him up like a ball of paper. But he wasn’t even watching her anymore. He was sagging down into the chair, eyes back on the hospital bed. He reached out, tugged one of Cas’s sheets into a straighter line. His hand lingered near Cas’s, but he just rubbed his face again. Meg felt the rage curdle in her stomach. Her whole body felt sour.

As she opened the door again, she paused. 

“Actually,” she said, lilting, “Don’t. Don’t tell him I was here.”

Dean ignored her, leaning forwards. He rested his elbows on his knees. Bowing his head, he looked almost in prayer, watching over Cas as he slept.

 

Hours later, Dean watches as Cas resurfaces unexpectedly, eyes opening just a crack, clouded over, barely there.  
“Hey, hey,” Dean says, quickly pressing the button for the nurse. “It’s good, buddy. You’re good.”

Cas blinks slowly at him, brushing his hand, breathing a sigh before he notices the jar on his bed which rest against the crook of his arm. Dean picks it up and holds it to where Cas can see.

“Guess she thought it would help you out, man,” he said as Cas taps the glass with a shaking finger, heart picking up a little. A mason jar, the bottom littered with a few handfulsof uprooted grass, crawling with half a dozen bees. Only a few holes had been sawed roughly into the lid, and the bees were moving dazedly, waving tiny antennae at Cas and tripping over one another. The two watched them move without comment, the bees travelling aimlessly in their tiny glass world, even as the nurses came. They watched as more sleep was dripped into Cas’s IVs, and the bees kept moving as Cas fell asleep again and Dean began to shake, silently, bowing his head again and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Who are we— that You would be mindful of us?_
> 
>  
> 
> _What do You see— that’s worth looking our way?_
> 
>  
> 
> _We are free— in ways that we never should be._
> 
>  
> 
> _Sweet release— from the grip of these chains._

**Author's Note:**

> I pray  
> for you all the time
> 
> The blessed time  
> is when you are around


End file.
